


Thresholds (or the moments between)

by Shadadukal



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Community: sfa_pornbattle, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:50:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadadukal/pseuds/Shadadukal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's sex, and then there's sleeping. Sharing both isn't that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thresholds (or the moments between)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to grav_ity for the beta!
> 
> Written for the second sfa_pornbattle for the prompts: falling asleep, waking up.

_Helen loves waking up to find Nikola still asleep. She can watch him, then; he looks so young in his slumber. She wonders if the same can be said for her. Perhaps neither of them actually looks that young, and she only thinks so because she knows Nikola's true age._

When Helen first started having sex with him, after the Worth affair but before Europe burst into flames, she always left once they were done. That was probably why they never went to her room; leaving his was easier than kicking him out of hers with his trousers in his arms.

He was not exactly complaining, of course. He’d spent long enough waiting to put up with restrictions, and his patience had paid off well enough the first time. So he let her leave, let her turn into her own cold bed, while he curled up with fresh memories. He had time.

 _Nikola loves falling asleep curled around Helen, hugging her close, and breathing the soft perfume of her hair. Sometimes, she holds him to her, her hair tickling the back of his neck. More often than not though, Helen just settles half on him, keeping him trapped under her, as if she is afraid he will disappear during the night._

Helen had taught herself to sleep alone. First when her mother died, and her father's characteristic pragmatism had failed to assuage her concerns about the possible presence of monsters under her bed. Then again when John had been lost to darkness.

Since then, she had never slept beside any of her lovers. Helen had hardened her heart, convinced she didn't need to be held at night, to hold onto someone herself. Sleeping on her own was easy enough. But with Nikola, she was tempted. To just stay. For the first time in decades, she wanted to fall asleep with someone next to her.

 _Helen loves falling asleep, inelegantly sprawled on Nikola's chest, his heart beating under her fingertips. Sometimes, she spoons behind him, resting her forehead between his shoulder blades, embracing him from behind, her hand over his heart. Other times, he is behind her, encircling her with his arms, and she finds peace with her head pillowed on his arm._

The decades passed, Nikola being increasingly disappointed that Helen never stayed to sleep after he made love to her. He didn't understand what was so wrong with just letting herself fall asleep there and then. After all, they had shared a bed many times. Usually because they were staying in a one-bed hotel room, pretending to be married to make the mission go more smoothly, and he wasn't enough of a gentleman to let her take the bed while he slept on the floor. So they shared, and because Helen was focused on her hunt, she only wanted to rest, but that was all right. Listening to her breathing next to him, her warmth so close, it was just as good, and if they woke up tangled together, all the better.

He wasn't sure exactly what had changed that one time early in the twenty-first century that, after he had made love to her, she laid down with her head on his chest, curling her body half on top of his. He hadn't dared say a word, and had just held her. When he opened his eyes the next morning, Helen was still there – it hadn't been a dream – and, grinning at him, she moved to straddle him without a word. It took him a minute to wake up enough to figure out that he probably shouldn't just lie there and let her do everything herself.

 _Nikola loves waking up with his arms around Helen, her body tucked alongside his. He loves it even better when she wakes up first and rubs her ass against his morning hard-on to wake him up. It usually means he is near coming before he is fully conscious, and, half-awake, it takes him only a few thrusts inside Helen for him to lose it. And then Helen rides his fingers hard until she comes too._

Helen had run out of perfectly good reasons why spending a night in Nikola's arms was a bad idea. Waking up to his smooth skin under her cheek the following morning, watching Nikola sleep, she decided it would take very serious circumstances to prevent her from doing that every night. Nikola didn't look unhappy about it, although she was surprised at how long it took him to get his brain into gear after waking up. But she could overlook that because what followed was great enthusiasm.

During the day, she ensured that when Nikola returned to the upper stories in the evening after a day spent in the lab, he found his room cleared out. She'd placed the map she drew just beyond where his eyes would fall naturally, unable to resist the urge for mischief, and trusted that the bright yellow sticky note would draw his attention before he left to berate someone for a supposed prank. She had not expected him to be so exhausted that, when he did arrive, he still wouldn't have figured it out.

Helen closed the door behind him, and wrapped him in a hug from behind, lips on the side of his neck, hands linked over his stomach. He just put his hands on top of hers, and leaned back against her, enjoying the feel of her breasts pressed against his back.

"Bed?" Helen asked, a teasing whisper in his ear.

"I'm tired," he said, testing her, but feeling a small hopeful smile curling his lips.

"Then we sleep," she replied.

Still, as they lay in bed together, he hugged her close, wrapping his arms around her, afraid she would leave him again, alone in the night.

His worries vanished the following day when he woke up at dawn to her grinding against him.


End file.
